10 Posts in 10 Days turned into 3 Posts in 3 Days.

The days leading up to my departure for China were full of last-minute drug store runs and moments of freaking out about what I was about to do. I didn’t know on February 20 I would be leaving for China in less than 3 months.

February 21 came and I read an email referencing this post on our adoption agency’s blog. They had an urgent need for more team members for an upcoming mission trip. Our agency has a mission-sending aim in addition to helping families adopt children from several countries including China, where we found four of our children waiting for a family!

I read the excerpt from the blog post in that email and it was like I knew. I didn’t really dismiss the prompting I felt, but I did wonder how in the world would I go to China and the logistics of all of it. I sent an email that night to the email link not really knowing for sure who would receive it. As it turns out, a lady, who had followed our journey to our first daughter in 2008 and is an adoptive parent herself, is now working for our adoption agency to coordinate all the China mission trips. She emailed me back that evening with answers to two specific questions I asked.

In her email back to me, two things she said stood out:

The purpose of this trip is simply to serve wherever we are needed in this orphanage.  Because we have not been able to work in this specific orphanage, we are not exactly sure what the needs are of this orphanage.

We will need to decide if this trip is a GO or not in the next week, or less.

OK. Breathe I told myself. A week or less? Serve where needed. I can definitely do that I thought, though the emotions and depth of that service proved to be one of the hardest and most rewarding five days of my life thus far.

Going to China involves more than just hopping on the next plane bound for Beijing or Honk Kong or Shanghai. You have to get permission to enter in the form of a VISA, which our team would later find out proved to be complicated and time-consuming. We all knew in the end this was just yet another tactic of the enemy to try and derail our plans to GO and VISIT orphans in China.

I would later find out that me and another lady were still trying to decide if we were in fact supposed to go on this trip. Four of the ladies had already committed, but the ACT rules require at the very least six individuals to go on a trip for it to happen which is exactly how large our team turned out to be! BUT GOD. Here we are at a local attraction in the city where we served, which the orphanage officials took us to in addition to another local attraction.

I’m not entirely sure if me or the other lady were the last to decide to go for sure, but all I know is that by February 25, I hit the SEND button early that morning after filling out the on-line ACT application. By that afternoon, I had a half a ream of paperwork to get printed. OK, that is an exaggeration, but I was a definite GO and this was REALLY happening, and I did have some paperwork to fill out!

I seem to have a pattern going now, and anyone who has followed me around the blogosphere will know that I LOVE patterns in numbers and God seems to like delighting me in this little factoid. Now I’ve been to China every 2 years for the last 6 years. Actually, I went first in September 2008, 21 months later I traveled in June 2010, 20 months later I traveled in February 2012, and finally, 27 months later, I traveled in May 2014. If anyone is wondering, yes, I do realize that July 2016 would have me in China 26 months after this latest trip. 😉 I’m just sayin’ I have made a mental note.

As September 2013 came and went, which was 19 months after our prior trip, I did get a little melancholy, which probably was also partly due to celebrating 5 years home with our big girl and knowing our adoption days are most definitely likely over.

Truth be told, I would bring four more children home from China. And my hubby would too I think. I saw a spark in his eyes as he looked at my photos from this trip. While we have never said never … we both know that our family dynamics currently and some struggles some of our children have really do preclude anymore adoptions. Which breaks my heart quite a little. But God.

So this trip. While I didn’t see it working on my heart in all the ways it has, I will readily admit it has brought back to the surface some grief over knowing our family is most likely (99.9999999999% sure) complete. I have felt the Lord showing me over the last 6 months or so that I perhaps don’t trust Him completely with our children and their futures. And on this trip He has reminded me of this as I have no choice obviously but to trust He has the lives of the children I met completely in His grip, even if their present circumstances might suggest to my finite mind that their best interest is not in His heart.

He says otherwise that He has their futures and their HOPE completely in His grip. And I KNOW that He loves them so much more than I do, which is saying a WHOLE lot because these kids I met left a permanent mark in my heart!

This post is such a ramble I know, but my heart is still adjusting to this newly created space in it that the children I met in China carved out of it. I wake up at night and see their faces and hear their voices. I wake up in the morning and realize it is 13 hours ahead where they are and I wonder what they are doing or if they have already forgotten our team.

I remember in particular the tears of one little girl, who stole all of our hearts, on the last day we were there. It was the first real emotion she had shown toward us other than her daily laughs at our attempts to entertain her and the other children. I remember the deep cries of a team member as we rode away in the van for the last time from this orphanage in western China and my own silent tears for what we had experienced over 5 days in this orphanage.

And I wonder if we will ever see any of these children again this side of glory. It is unlikely we will, though I would like to think at least some of them will one day find a place in a forever family through our adoption agency. But for many, that will just not ever happen either because of their legal status or because of their needs.

I know post-mission trip depression … I’m not even sure that is the right word … isn’t uncommon. I know that I am forever changed. And I’m good with that. I struggle with wondering how do I deal with a whiny child who is bemoaning the fact he has to put the chicks up in their new coop for the night. I want to say, “Really? Get a grip.” But I know circumstance is everything in this world. I know he just doesn’t get it. I hope one day he will, but the fact remains that for whatever reason God brought him into this world to a loving, anticipating family who wanted him desperately. For other children, that isn’t always the case. And for yet others, they came into an anticipating family who realized upon their arrival or years later that their needs were too great to meet and so they made a difficult choice to let them go. I can’t even allow my mind to go there, though this trip brought back to the surface our Chinese children’s birthfamilies and the choices I choose to believe they faced. The fact that they are here today tells me their parents (or parent) made a CHOICE to give them a chance they thought they couldn’t give them. And my heart hurts deeply again.

Why can’t all children be born healthy? Or into the arms of loving and equipped parents? Or into a situation that doesn’t involve abandonment for whatever the reason? I don’t know. I’m not Him. I don’t understand. I never will here. On Earth.

All I know is that every Christ-follower, while not called to adopt … though I’ve tried to preach that I’ll be the first to admit .. is definitely called to GO and VISIT orphans. So if you haven’t like me until I left for China on May 15, 2014, then you need to ask God to show you when and where. Don’t ask Him to show you how because He probably won’t until you commit.

The only person on the planet who knew I was considering this trip when I signed up on February 25 was my husband and the lady who coordinates the China trips at our adoption agency. Well, actually, maybe others at the agency, who work for the ACT department and receive the on-line applications knew, but the only people I told were my husband and the lady I emailed for more information. It wasn’t some grand neon-lights experience either. I just read the agency e-blast as I most often do when they pop into my email inbox, and I just KNEW. It was GO time.

I had prayed for YEARS to be given the green light to go on missions. But to be honest, the prayer had fallen down my list of prayers. It wasn’t that I didn’t desire still to go … and I was willing to go anywhere … it was just that the time was never right. And maybe I did get a little discouraged as I would watch others go and wonder why not me? But when that e-blast came, I felt the pitter-patter of my heart and I just knew. And so I went.

I know this post is getting long, so I think I’ll leave with a few pictures of some of the children we met. I wish I could say they are all adoptable or will be adopted, but I don’t know that. I will say that if you are interested in learning more about possibly adopting waiting children, PLEASE head on over to adoption agency’s website where you’ll find plenty of contact info. for the wonderful folks there who can tell you more about their adoption programs and waiting children specifically. If you would like to see Jesus’ heart in an incredible way in the faces of His children and feel His heartbeat in the hands you touch while on the mission field, then head on over to the ACT site and read more about the upcoming trips.

This little one’s foster mama motioned for me to take her on the airplane and bring her home. Oh, how I would if only I could have. She has microtia of both ears that I know of, but let me tell you this little one is smart. Hey, she wanted to be up in my arms the whole afternoon of the birthday party we threw for some of the children! 😉 I have no idea if she will ever be available for adoption, but if she is I have so many more photos of her and I spent some precious time with her on my hip!

And this little one. We thought she was a girl. Turns out she is a he, which just makes him that much more in need of some advocacy. Did you know by the way that for every ONE family that selects a SON for their gender preference, EIGHT will be open only to a daughter? It is true, though it is just an unscientific study I did awhile ago. But seriously, ask around and you’ll see no matter the adoption program families LARGELY prefer to adopt (or foster) daughters over sons. Someone will definitely be blessed to call this little one their son if he is ever adopted someday! God can definitely do that!!! Pray with me to that end!

It is so hard to see these children and know that even though they are taken care of and loved, they would absolutely SOAR and FLOURISH in a forever family. Even the foster mamas and ayis recognize this. They can only do so much. I can tell you the ayis at this particular orphanage have their work cut out for them as the children’s age ranges and needs are so wide and in many cases so complex. This little guy really just needs a forever family.

I have no doubt in my mind he has been loved up by his foster mama. They clearly have a bond going and he has been provided with medical care for his cleft lip and palate, but he is missing a forever family. I hope he can one day be adopted too. Again, I don’t know any of the status of these children legally as some may have living relatives and some may not be available for adoption, but I can hook you up with a great adoption agency who can look further into the possible adoptions of one of these children or they can help you find the child who has been waiting for your family!

If adoption isn’t in your future, please consider going and loving on children in other countries! If you want to read about the mission trip I took, please to go the trip blog we kept while we were in China. Read it and then consider where God might be calling you to GO. I PROMISE you will be changed for the better if you go love on the least of these, and you will be BLESSED immeasurably more than you can even imagine! Seriously. Go. Be. Someone. For an orphan. You may be an answer to their heart cries.